Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao

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Shikaripur Ranganatha Rao (born 1922) is an Indian archeologist who led teams credited with the discovery of a number of Harappan sites including the famous port city of Lothal in Gujarat.

Contents 1 Biography and career 1.1 Decoding the Indus script 1.2 Excavations at Dwaraka 2 External links 3 Bibliography

[edit] Biography and career

Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao completed his education from the Mysore University. He worked in the Archaeological Department of Baroda State and subsequently served the Archaeological Survey of India in various capacities. Dr. Rao has led excavations of many important sites such as Rangpur, Amreli, Bhagatrav, Dwaraka, Hanur, Aihole, Kaveripattinam and others. One of his most important works were leading the research and excavations at Lothal, the earliest known port in history and the most important Indus-era site in India. Dr. Rao was the recipient of Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship and a doctorate of literature from Mysore University. Rao had supervised excavation of several historic sites across the country in the West and South. He was also associated with conservation of monuments such as Taj Mahal and forts. Despite officially retiring in 1980, Dr. Rao was requested to work for the ASI Director General in leading Indian archaeological projects. It was under the initiative of Dr Rao that the NIO opened a marine archaeology research centre in 1981, under the stewardship of then director Dr S. Z. Quazim, which grew into a world recognised body. He was the founder of the Society of Marine Archaeology in India. Rao has been at the forefront of Indian archaeology for many decades - he was involved in extensive research into India's ancient and often mythical past, from the sites of the Indus Valley Civilization to excavations pertaining to the Kurukshetra War.

[edit] Decoding the Indus script

Rao (19xx^{[citation needed]}) established the uniformity of the Indus script (uniform all over the extent of Indus-era civilization), and separated the basic letters from those with additional signs. He also noted that the script resembled West Asian alphabets. He decided to assign to each Indus basic letter the same sound-value as the West Asian letter which closely resembled it. Rao proceeded also to read the inscriptions on the Indus seals. Among the many words yielded by his alleged decipherment are the numerals aeka, tra, chatus, panta, happta/sapta, dasa, dvadasa and sata (1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 100).

[edit] Excavations at Dwaraka

Rao asserts that the unearthed remains were the mythical city that was home to Krishna, the eighth Avatara of Vishnu. According to Rao's research and the Mahabharata, Krishna built Dwaraka at Kushasthali - a fortress in the sea which is in ruins. Then he built another city at the mouth of the Gomti river. At Kushasthali (Bet Dwaraka) Rao and his team found a wall (560 metres long) visible on the shore itself. Dating of pottery found here gave a date of 1528 B.C. Further unearthed was a seal (mudra). The Mahabharata refers to how Krishna wanted every citizen to carry some sort of identity - a mudra. Dr Rao asserted the three-holed triangular stone anchors found in large numbers in Dwarka waters suggested a continuity in evolution of the anchors in Lothal and Mohenjodaro, which had a single hole. The Dwaraka anchors of late Harappan phase are a couple of centuries older than the identical anchors of late Bronze Age used in Cyprus and Syria, he added.

[edit] External links

• Interview with S. R. Rao at The Hindu
• Dwaraka
• The Lost City of Dvaraka
• Renowned archaeologist Dr S R Rao felicitated by society
• Dr. Rao emphasizes preservation of heritage sites in India
• Indus script
• Hindu dated 20 Feb, 2006 - S. R. Rao among Vidya Varenya awardees
• Google's cache of Sundeep Books biographic write-up
• Rao biography

• Interview
• Portrait of S.R.Rao at Kamat.com

[edit] Bibliography

• Lothal (published by the Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, 1985)
• Lothal and the Indus Civilisation ISBN 0-210-22278-6
• Lothal: A Harappan Port Town (1955 - 1962) (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India) ASIN: B0006E4EAC
• The Lost City of Dvaraka 1999, xxii, 157 p., ISBN 81-86471-48-0
• Rao, S.R. (1991). Dawn and Devolution of the Indus Civilization. ISBN 81-85179-74-3.
• Marine Archaeology in India (2001)
• New Trends in Indian Art and Archaeology: S.R. Rao's 70th Birthday Felicitation Volumes, edited by B.U. Nayak and N.C. Ghosh. 1992, 2 v.